5. Who Is the Nigger?: Strategies of Using the ‘N’ Word and Having it Both Ways

Monica R. Miller [+-]

Lehigh University

Monica R. Miller is Assistant Professor of Religion and Africana Studies at Lehigh University (Fall 2013) and among other publications, author of Religion and Hip Hop (Routledge). Miller currently serves as a Senior Research Fellow with The Institute for Humanist Studies
(Washington, DC), is Co-Chair and founder of Critical Approaches to the Study of Hip Hop and Religion Group (American Academy of Religion) and member of the Culture on the Edge scholarly collective (University of Alabama). Miller is co-author of forthcoming volumes, Religion in Hip Hop: Mapping the New Terrain with Dr. Anthony B. Pinn and rapper Bun B (Bloomsbury Press), The Hip Hop and Religion Reader (with Dr. Anthony B. Pinn) (Routledge) as well as an edited volume on identity, Claiming Identity in the Study of Religion (Equinox). Her work has been featured in a host of regional and national print, radio, live video, and TV news outlets. She has presented her research at colleges, universities, and conferences throughout the U.S., Cuba and Canada.

Description

In this section, Monica R. Miller looks to past and contemporary cultural conversations over the “N-word”—who can say it, why, and when has a lot to do with various groups wanting to outline who can say what and when, so that certain groups can retain an option to have it both ways. Such tendencies are as much present in scholarship, not necessarily where a contentious word like “nigger” is concerned, but in other arenas. In this instance, the vignette helps to site and cite some of the more palpable implications of McCutcheon’s critique of Jeffrey Kripal’s The Serpents Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion (2006) in “A Gift with Diminished Returns: On Jeff Kripal's The Serpent's Gift.”

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Citation

Miller, Monica R. . 5. Who Is the Nigger?: Strategies of Using the ‘N’ Word and Having it Both Ways. Claiming Identity in the Study of Religion - Social and Rhetorical Techniques Examined. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 86-96 Sep 2015. ISBN 9781781790748. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=24309. Date accessed: 24 May 2018 doi: 10.1558/equinox.24309. Sep 2015

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